Twitter Ditches Follower Blocking Changes Less Than a Day After Making Them

Old blocking rules are back in effect

This week Twitter made some big changes to the way it handles users who block other users from following them. Originally, when a Twitter user blocked someone, the blocked person was no longer able to follow the user or interact with their profile. The downside to the way Twitter handled blocking people was that it was clear to the person that was blocked what had happened.

Twitter figures that by making it clear to another user that you had blocked them, the blocker was opened to potential harassment or bullying in the real world. Twitter rolled out changes this week that would allow the person you block from your account to continue to read your tweets and interact with your profile. Apparently, the only thing that happened when you blocked the person was that you no longer saw their replies to your posts.

The change raised a swift and large outcry from twitter users and the social network released the changes less than a day after making them. Twitter says the reasoning was to make it where the blocked person didn't know they were blocked to help limit retaliation.

"We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users - we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe," Michael Sippey, Twitter's vice-president of product,said in a blogpost.